Okay, so what am I doing about the fact that buying anything in the produce section costs a lot? The dollars per calories basically makes no sense if I’m on an extreme budget.
I can buy a pack of strawberries that will last the family a day or two for $5+ and has a total of 200 calories in the entire package and we go hungry, or I can buy something processed that’s calorie dense.
Or I can buy something calorie dense and cheap like rice and beans that takes a lot of time to prep and make, which I don’t have because I work two part time jobs to pay rent - my main way to stay afloat is working long hours and overtime.
Meanwhile all the media that is presented to me tells me not to buy whole foods but to buy packaged products that are a lot more fun and tasty instead. It’s not like I am out here paying for the ad-free Netflix tier. My school and family never taught me how to cook because my school was a low income public school in a segregated society, and my parents also worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and didn’t spend a lot of time at home as a result.
A lot of 9 to 5 corporate employees really don’t understand what it’s like to be poor.
I will tell you what I did in that situation. I ate the cheap, processed, calorie dense foods, until such time as I could move to a major metropolitan area with better economic opportunities.
Moving to that area (Northern Virginia) was my focus. I did it through sheer willpower and determination.
I had to essentially abandon family and friends to do it however. But I gave myself a better life outcome.
Whenever food stuff comes up it becomes very apparent that most people are super ignorant about food prep. I get the vibe it's mostly on purpose so folks don't have to prep food and can just order stuff or buy cheap. Idk, but it's very normalized nowadays to know absolutely nothing about cooking/baking. Its a weird status symbol thing, maybe?
I'm not saying folks make a conscious decision to never learn how to cook or food prep. I mean as a society, there are constant excuses given to us. Over time more and more people fall victim to saying no to learning. This reinforces itself, "everytime I try something I fail", so folks never learn. It's sad to see how widespread this mentality is. We trade our skills for convenience then complain when we have no skills and the convenience has worn off.
This ignorance comes from a barely-regulated advertising industry and an inadequate and highly unequal education system, which is a lot of the point I’m trying to make.
Don’t lose sight of what it’s really like to be poor. Being poor means having very little time, and mostly thinking about survival. Learning to cook from scratch is a real hobby and something of a luxury. This isn’t the pre-industrial era where peasants had ample free time, this is an era where the poorest people have the least amount of time. They and their parents work multiple jobs for long hours with no paid time off.
It’s also a system where healthier food costs more and there’s no good societal way to offset that and make nutrition more equally accessible. (Let’s not forget the federal government recently playing political games with SNAP)
Let’s also talk about food deserts. I am an upper middle class person and I once lived on the border of one of the poorest areas of a rust belt city with declining population.
I once went into a big chain grocery store because it was close by, but it was the B tier store for the poor local population.
I shit you not, they did not carry tortellini. One of the most common pastas you can find in an American supermarket. Not fresh, not frozen, not dry. They didn’t have it. I asked an employee and they said they don’t carry it, it wasn’t out of stock or anything.
This was a full grocery store, which the community was lucky to have instead of just a corner cigarette and energy drink store, and they didn’t have a basic staple pasta.
Did they have vegetables, grains and some kind of meat? (Beef, chicken, fish?)
Tortellini are common, yes, but I wouldn't consider a grocery a food desert because of that. Food desert is the grocery never having stock of more basic things, like milk, oil, meat, that's a real food desert, and I've seen that happen in a high inflation country.
I can buy a pack of strawberries that will last the family a day or two for $5+ and has a total of 200 calories in the entire package and we go hungry, or I can buy something processed that’s calorie dense.
Or I can buy something calorie dense and cheap like rice and beans that takes a lot of time to prep and make, which I don’t have because I work two part time jobs to pay rent - my main way to stay afloat is working long hours and overtime.
Meanwhile all the media that is presented to me tells me not to buy whole foods but to buy packaged products that are a lot more fun and tasty instead. It’s not like I am out here paying for the ad-free Netflix tier. My school and family never taught me how to cook because my school was a low income public school in a segregated society, and my parents also worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and didn’t spend a lot of time at home as a result.
A lot of 9 to 5 corporate employees really don’t understand what it’s like to be poor.